However, Jonathan Read , CEO of ECOtality, which is the largest recipient to date of government-backed installation projects, said he thinks that the market is big enough to accommodate all the players, at least in the short term.

The Mutuals Information Service, the government-backed advice service for public sector workers looking to go for employee ownership, has already received inquiries from some 230 potential mutuals – ranging from two or three-person teams to services with £50m turnovers.

Last year, Lloyds issued a total of about £50 billion $80.69 billion of debt through a combination of public and private placements, as it dealt with a wave of maturing debt and moved to pay down some of its government-backed borrowings.

The report, issued jointly by the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, suggests several short-term measures that would effectively increase the cost of taking out a government-backed mortgage.

The Federal Reserve's decision to reinvest payments from mortgages in its portfolio into government-backed mortgage securities signals a renewed effort to help consumers take advantage of interest rates that have fallen to their lowest levels in decades.